They’re the Men At 10 on ABC, don’t you know?
[via Toby]
Year: 2014
News: People Just Do Nothing and Suspects renewed, Perception cancelled, a Frequency TV series + more
Film casting
- Christoph Waltz joins next Bond movie
Australian TV
UK TV
- BBC3 renews: People Just Do Nothing
- Channel 5 renews: Suspects
- Wednesday ratings
US TV
- Two more scripts for The McCarthys
- TNT cancels: Perception
- Wednesday ratings
US TV show casting
- Lizzie Brochere joins The Strain
- Nia Vardalos to guest on Marry Me
- Ron Perlman to guest on The Blacklist [minor spoilers]
New US TV shows
- NBC developing: TV version of Frequency
- Promo for Fox’s Backstrom
New US TV show casting
- Poppy Drayton to star in MTV’s Shannara
- Kathryn Hahn to star in Showtime’s Happyish. Again
Weird old title sequences: Near and Far (1975-1988)
There seemed to be something in the air in British kids programming in the 1970s. Overwhelmingly, the idea seemed to be scare the crap out of anyone watching, usually through music. That extended not just to dramas, such as Children of the Stones, The Changes and Sapphire and Steel. Even the schools programming wanted to have them hiding behind the sofa.
We’ve already looked at ITV’s Picture Box, which deployed the fairground steam organ to terrifying effect, but if you thought the Beeb would take that lying down, you’re wrong. Behold, children: Near and Far. Things can be near, things can be far, but you will be frightened either way. So frightened that all you’ll remember about it is the title sequence and theme tune by the Radiophonic Workshop, not the content.
News: more Rake, more Age of Ultron, Johnny Depp’s Mortdecai, a Wrong Mans 2 trailer + more
Trailers
- Trailer for Mortdecai with Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn and Paul Bettany
- Teaser for Divergent 2
- Extended Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer
Australian TV
- ABC renews: Rake…
- …green lights: Anna Karenina adaptation The Beautiful Lie
UK TV
- Trailer for series two of The Wrong Mans
- Tuesday ratings
US TV
US TV show casting
- Nick Jandl to recur on Nashville
- Andy Kindler to guest on Sirens
New US TV shows
- USA green lights: drama Evil Men, with Dallas Roberts and Clifton Collins Jr
- The first two minutes of The CW’s The Messengers
- IFC green lights: presentation for Gigi’s Bucket List with David Krumholtz
The Wednesday Play: John McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil (1974)
The economic history of Scotland since the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries may seem like a less than promising subject for a drama, but in the 1970s, anything went.
In 1973, John McGrath wrote the play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil, a touring production that went around Scotland explaining to the Scottish how they’d been oppressed and exploited from the 18th century all the way through to the discovery of and drilling for oil in the 1960s. Through a series of sketches, overlaid with a presentation of facts and statistics, and even interviews with workers and owners of oil rigs, the play presents the case that the current exploitation of Scottish natural resources is perhaps even worse than the brutal clearances of Patrick Sellar and that the Scottish people should resist it.
Obviously, that didn’t happen and Scottish ownership of oil became a vital factor for both sides of the Scottish independence referendum this year. But in terms of interesting and innovative approach to storytelling, this piece of 70s agitprop, which went on to become a 1974 BBC Play For Today, is hard to beat.